Hi Yummyrum ,
It was the simmerstat that I bypassed , the heating elemnts seem to work fine .
the whole thing is plugged into a safety switch .
I am thinking I may not have enough packing ,
I put 5 SS scrubbers in the column - 50 mm x 1 m tall , but I streched them out ,
I can easily stuff more in there .
also I may have the tap open a bit much , not allowing the reflux process to work ,
how can i check this ?
should i leave the water running to the condensers as its warming up ?
( the tea party I had in mind might require different bikkies )